Cleanup & Remediation

A committee of the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) indicated this week it supports the Energy Department’s anticipated request to restrict airspace above agency facilities – a discussion sparked last summer after drone sightings over key areas of the South Carolina facility. The Strategic and Legacy Management Committee – one of several sub-panels within CAB […]

A committee of the Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) indicated this week it supports the Energy Department’s anticipated request to restrict airspace above agency facilities – a discussion sparked last summer after drone sightings over key areas of the South Carolina facility. The Strategic and Legacy Management Committee – one of several sub-panels […]

A $122 million waste disposal facility at the Savannah River Site is undergoing a readiness assessment and should be available for use about a year sooner than expected, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. The DOE site in South Carolina tweeted Tuesday that it is entering the final readiness assessment for Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) […]

A 60-day public comment period opened Monday on Bechtel National’s plan to start installing pipes needed to clean up the Hanford Site’s low-activity liquid radioactive waste, according to regulatory filings made public this week. If granted, the modification to the company’s permit with Washington state would allow Bechtel to install underground plumbing to transfer low-activity […]

The latest step in the Trump administration’s plan to shrink the federal government, released Wednesday, directs agencies to base their fiscal 2018 headcounts on a budget proposal that prescribes an almost 10-percent funding increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The Environmental Management (EM) office, which cleans up nuclear waste created by Cold […]

An article in the April 11 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, “Bechtel Seeks Permission to Install Pipe for WTP,” should have said the company’s contract with Department of Energy to build the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site is worth about $14.5 billion, and that roughly $7.5 billion of the total is for the […]

The latest step in the Trump administration’s plan to shrink the federal government, released Wednesday, directs agencies to base their fiscal 2018 headcounts on a budget proposal that prescribes an almost 10-percent funding increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The Environmental Management (EM) office, which cleans up nuclear waste created by Cold War-era […]

A $122 million waste disposal facility at the Savannah River Site is undergoing a readiness assessment and should be available for use about one year sooner than expected, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. The DOE site in South Carolina tweeted Tuesday that it is entering the final readiness assessment for Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 6, the first 30-million […]

Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be in New Ellenton, S.C., on April 18 to discuss the agency’s latest performance evaluation of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility being built at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. The regulator gave a largely positive review of 2016 operations at the plant intended to process […]

A 60-day public comment period opened Monday on Bechtel National’s plan to start installing pipes needed to clean up the Hanford Site’s low-activity liquid radioactive waste, according to regulatory filings made public yesterday. If granted, the modification to the company’s permit with Washington state would allow Bechtel to install underground plumbing to transfer low-activity waste between […]

Top officials on the Hanford Site cleanup, along with federal and state regulators, will take questions from an online audience Wednesday as part of the Hanford Live event. Those interested can register online ahead of the webinar, which is slated to begin at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Scheduled federal and state attendees include: Doug Shoop, […]

WASHINGTON — As contractors and locals wait to learn how much more funding their Cold War nuclear-cleanup projects might get in fiscal 2018 under the Trump administration’s proposed budget increase for the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, the head of that office on Wednesday focused ruminations about next year’s budget on work that hasn’t […]

SC&A Inc. of Vienna, Va., will help the Energy Department prepare a supplemental environmental evaluation the agency must conduct to finalize its two-phase plan to tear down a former commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in upstate New York, under a five-year contract worth nearly $17 million, including options, DOE announced late Thursday. The Contract for the West […]

South Carolina’s health department recently hit the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site with two notices, but no fines, for violations in water and emissions sampling. According to a recent site update, SRS received a notice of violation (NOV) in February from the state Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) for “failure to obtain […]

By James Voss The 2017 Waste Management Symposia was held in early March in Phoenix. We are extremely pleased at the results and the extent of our charitable educational support. At the symposia, we awarded 21 scholarships, funded a fellowship at Gonzaga University, funded Florida International University’s participation, and awarded six scholarships to STEM teachers […]

It was not clear this week how a Canadian company’s multibillion-dollar offer to acquire engineering giant Atkins would affect the company’s work on the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear cleanup operations. The companies on Monday confirmed they were in talks for SNC-Lavalin Group of Montreal to acquire London-based Atkins for about $3.5 billion. The transaction would include […]

The Savannah River Site declared a potential inadequacy in the safety analysis (PISA) at a site storage facility on Feb. 24 after a lid came off a spent nuclear fuel (SNF) storage can. Department of Energy SRS Manager Jack Craig said in a March 29 report that the incident occurred in L Area, a facility […]

The president of the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council (HAMTC) is resigning, but says he plans to remain involved at the Hanford Site, focusing on health and safety training. Dave Molnaa will on April 16 leave the job he has held for 12 years at HAMTC, an umbrella group for 15 unions representing workers at […]

The chairman of a House panel with jurisdiction over the Energy Department met with Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Wednesday, less than a week after requesting an investigation into whether DOE’s Office of Environmental Management is spending money efficiently. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who holds the gavel on the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee, was […]

Portage Inc. earned $1.1 million of its possible $1.5 million fiscal 2016 award fee as the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) contract. It received a “good” rating for the year, according to DOE’s latest evaluation, reflecting that grade in three performance areas: project management; tailings excavation, […]

The next technical services contract at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office in Lexington, Ky., is a five-year deal, including options, that has been set aside for eligible small-businesses, according to the draft solicitation the agency released recently. The contract is a follow-on to the roughly $50-million Portsmouth Environmental Technical Services contract held by Restoration […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) could next week accept its first shipment of transuranic waste from an Energy Department nuclear cleanup site in more than three years, a source in New Mexico said this week. DOE’s Carlsbad Field Office projected in January that WIPP would begin taking in new shipments this month, though the agency […]

A group of House lawmakers from states with legacy nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dusted off their annual plea for more program funding with a request for $150 million to the leaders of the House budget panel that writes the first drafts of the federal government’s annual energy and water […]

It was not clear Wednesday how a Canadian company’s multibillion-dollar offer to acquire engineering giant Atkins would affect the company’s work on the Energy Department’s legacy nuclear cleanup operations. SNC-Lavalin Group of Montreal on Monday confirmed it had offered some $3.5 billion to buy London-based Atkins. The company has a presence, among other places, at […]

WASHINGTON — As contractors and local stakeholders wait to learn how much more funding their Cold War nuclear-cleanup projects might get under the Trump administration’s proposed $500-million budget increase for the Energy Department office that manages this work, the head of that office focused ruminations about the fiscal 2018 federal budget here Wednesday on projects that […]

Four Republican lawmakers in the House, echoing remarks Energy Secretary Rick Perry made during his confirmation hearing in January, are wondering whether the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is spending money efficiently. To that end, the lawmakers have asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether active Environmental Management cleanup programs should be put […]

The next technical services contract at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office in Lexington, Ky., is a five-year deal, including options, that has been set aside for eligible small-businesses, according to the draft solicitation the agency released recently. The contract is a follow-on to the roughly $50-million Portsmouth Environmental Technical Services contract held by Restoration […]

Portage Inc. earned $1.1 million of its possible $1.5 million fiscal 2016 award fee as the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) contract. It received an overall “good” rating for the year, reflecting that grade in three performance areas: project management; tailings excavation, haul, and disposal; and […]

Online registration is scheduled to open on April 11 for upcoming tours of the Hanford Site that will focus on cleanup operations at the onetime plutonium production facility, the Department of Energy announced Friday. Those interested can register via the Hanford website, hanford.gov. The tours will involve viewings and briefings on several cleanup projects at […]

Police in Bridgeton, Mo., on Friday arrested 12 people who were preventing vehicle access to the West Lake and Bridgeton landfills, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Protesters said they were concerned about the proximity of radioactive waste at the West Lake Landfill, material from a former uranium production facility at Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis, […]